Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1894 — Silence [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Silence

By Miss Mulock

CHAPTER 11. Roderiok Jardine was not, I hope, a worse young feliow than most others of his age, or less soit-heaited. Yet when he had fairly bade good-by ’to his good, tearful mother —who, he knew well, would do anything in the world for him, except let him do what he felt was best for him self —this parting once over, he- breathed more freely than he had done for many weeks. His ' wild-goose chase" had resolved itself into a deliberate purpose, or as much so as was possible to his nature, -and at his age. He had not been to Blackhail—he haraly knew why, except that his mother had thrown a .good many impediments in the way of the journey, so that perceiving that .she aid not like it, he gave it up. But ■he had a long correspondence with Mr. Black, the old factor there, who knew ■all the family affairs. From him Roderick discovered that there had been, half a century back, three branches of Jardines—represented by Silence Jardine, Archibald Jardine, and Henry Jardine, his father. Thence Archibald had suddenly disappeared abroad, talcing his little patrimony. After many years he was heard of as a “pasteur””in some Swiss canton; no very great change, he having been intended for the Scotch •Church; and he was said to be married, with a family. But he had never revived acquaintance with either of his cousins, and wnat were his present •circumstances, whether he were a.ive •or dead, nobody knew. He had only been able to catch one •clew whereby he mightfind his cousin. Mr. Black, the B.ackhall factor, a strong Free Church man, had taken som'e interest in a similar disruption in the Swiss Church, and in one of the controversial wt iters therein, a “professeur” or “pasteur,” or both—the good man’s ideas on the subject were misty—at Nouchatel. To this M. Reynier Roderick brought a letter of introduction, but, on delivering it, found the family were still at their summer retreat in the Jura Mountains. So he •decided to make the best of a bad business, and amuse himself till they came •back. He knew the language—that was one comfort—and he was not of the stoiid Saxon temperament, which refuses to take in any new ideas, or to •«ee any perfection in things to which it is unaccustomed. He was a true Celt, impressionable and flexible by nature, ready to love, quick to hate, until the experience of life should teach caution in the one and tolerance in the other. “The world will go hard with you, my boy,” his father had sometimes 6aid, half tenderly, half pensively; and Roderick, shaking his black curls, had only laughed, airaid ■of nothing. Is or was he discouraged or afraid now. In fact, he rather enjoyed this dropping from the c.ouds—oh, what soaking clouds!—into a new place and new people. Not so very new after ail, for when on Sunday morning he followed the dripping multitude up the steeD street which led to the cathedral —now a Protestant church —he found everything so like home that but for the language he could have imagined himself “sitting under” his mother s favorite minister at Richerden. Only when the psalm arose, to a quaint and beautiful tune, and it was a beautiful psalm, too, for he read it out of his neighbor’s book, beginning

“Grand Dieu, nona te louons, nous t’adcrons, Selirneur. ” it contrasted favorably with the nasal hymns which so tormented him in Scotland. It was sung not badly, especially by one pure high soprano, a few seats hehind, a voice so good that he yainly tried to catch sight of the singer; and in its sweet musical French it «eemed to express what he missed so often at home, the sense of cheerfulness in religion. To the last verse — Nous n’esperens, O Dieu, du'eu ta grande bonte; Tu seul peut nous aider dans notre adversite. Rendre noi jeurs heureux et notre ame conte aw, the invisible singer behind gave such pathos that it went right to his heart. The young man, called often “irreligious” by his mother, because his religion lay very deep down, longed earnestly for those jouas heureux, that ame contente, and wonlered if, by any means, he could attain to the like—he, aii alone, with nobody to he p him to be good, hundreds ready to allure him to be bad. It was a s-mall thing, one of those trifling incidents which befall us all—only some of us note them and others do not: but long afterward he remembered it with a strange solemnity, like a person who, believing he was walking in his own way, on his own feet, finds out that hands unseen, unfelt, have been leading him all the while. Plunging back through the muddy streets “homo”—what a lidiculous word —to the dreary hotel, Roderickmade up his mind to give one day's more chance to the weather, and to the absent Professeur Reynier, upon whom, all his famille charmante, the garcon dilated enthusiastically; for everybody seemed to know everybody in this innocent little town. If. on the morrow, it did not cease raining, andifiome token did not come in answer to h J s letter and card, Roderick resolved to change his quarters, and try “fresh woods and pastures new”—take, in short, to pleasure instead of duty, and pursue the search after this vague distant cousin no more. But the next day in rising, behold a change! And such a change! The mist had entirely lifted off from the lake. Its wide "bosom lay, still gray, but motionless and clear in the soft dawn. And beyond, their intense purple sharply distinct against the bright amber of the sky, was the long line of Alps. Through one deep indentation, between the Jungfrau and the Fenste t horn, the sun was slowly rising, dyeing the snows rose-color, and then, as he mounted above the ■cle f t, pouring a sudden stream of light right across the lake—that “golden path ol rays,” which always feels like a bridge whereon delivered souls might wa k—they to us or we to them—tho ; e that on earth we see no more. Roderick, as he gazed, was conscious of the same sensation which hdd come over him a few days before —that intuition of approaching late— b iss or ba e; which by those who have it not is esteemed mere fancy, and supremely ridioulous; and even those who have it have need to be rather afraid of it, just as a very imaginative person would be lesi ini fear of the ghosts he

beheld than of the ghosts he oreated. “Abelt omen," murmured Roderick, as, having stood in an ecstasy, watching the gorgeous sunrise, he saw it melt into common daylight, as all sunrises do. in November especially. A dull, rainy mist began once more to gather on the distant peaks. “Another wet day, after all. Richerden itself could not be worse than this. Shall I go home agamy" But it was so Ignominious to go home, having done nothing, seen nothing, that he thought he would make an effort at least to get to Berne and back before the short day closed. And descending, beside his solitary plate at the dreary table d'hote breakfast he found a letter, the daintiest, most politely worded billet, inviting him, In the name of M. leProfesseurand Mme. Reynier, to pass the evening at their house. “Six o’olock, and a soiree! What simple folks they must be here!” But hnding, he could be back in time, be accepted the invitation in his very best French, and started off to the railway station, on his little bit of solitary sight-seeing. No one shared his carriage—abroad there is a saying that nobody travels flrst-clas- except fools and Englishmen —so he admired all alone the picturesque country which skirts the long chain of lakes; very comfortable, but just a trifle dull. Not that Roderick aislikedfhis own company; on the contrary, he preferred it to that of most people he met —but he had had so much of it lately. It would have been rather pleasant to have somebody to whom he could say that Berne was a most curious old town, with whom he could have thrown bun 3 to the bears, tho e important personages,“rentiers” on their own account; still better, when inquiring his way to Terrasse, and finding the view hopeless, the mountains being again “couverts,” he had to content himself with admiring the river which flows below it. circling the pretty todla like a tender arm. Still more would he have liked somebody, anybody, beside him, with whom he could lean over the low wall and argue about the sensations of the man on horseback, who leaped down—Heaven knows how many feet—without being killed; and what sort of sermons he preached—since, the inscription says, he at once entered the Church and was a minister in it for many years. “Suppose I, Roderick Jardine, were to jump down now, just to feel a sensation, or create one—Folly!” And laughing at himself, and his inordinate vexation at the dull gray day, the miserable mountains, the solitude, everything! he went to feed at a restaurant, and lounge away the time till return train.

Just before it started, by a sudden impulse, hoping against hope, ho walked back to the Terrasse, and turned a last look in tho direction of mountains. One instant—one wonderful, bewildering instant —and than—“lf, alter my death, I open my eyes in Paradise, I know. I feel, it will look like that.” Such was the thought which passed through Roderick’s mind—tlie only thought, for every feeing was absorbed into mere, gazing—drinking in through eyes and soul a vision, utterly indiscribable to those who have never seen it. The Jungfrau in the sunset, spiritualized by a clear anther glory, till it resembles nothing earthly, only that new Jerusalem 'coming down from heaven like a bride prepared for her husband"—Roderick gazed and gazed, almost out of himself with ecstasy, thinking of nothing, seeing nothing, though there was a little group beside him gazing too. But he never noticed them, till, stepping backward, he came against somebody, and said, “Pardon, madame”—then turned and taw it was not madame at all—mademoiselle. She had never observed him —not in the lea-t. Her eyes were too fixed upon the mountains, in entire absorption —large, calm, blue, almost English eyes. And her short, curly fair hair might have been English too. But when at the second "Pardon” she turned, there was an unmistakable foreign grace In her slight acknowledgment. She and her companion, an older lady, exchanged a word or two, but it was French, spoken with the purest of accents. So if Roderick had had any hope of finding a countrywoman it faded out at once. laded—as the lovely vision of the Jungfrau and lensterhorn already had begun to fade. Yet still the "little grouD stood silently gazing, in a common sympathy. Roderick never looked even at his young neighbor, until, suddenly turning, their eyes met. Both were full of tears:

“At the first sight They have chauged eyes.” People dispute this truth, and yet it is a truth to some people and under some circumstances. Startled to a degree that almost annoyed him—bowing instinctively, and then blushing deeply to think that he had done so, that he had taken such a liberty with any strange lady,Roderick hurried away, having indeed waited so long tha; his swift young feet and the happy tardiness of Swiss railways alone saved him from losing his train and the Reynier soiree. “But I will come back to Berne tomorrow,” thought be. “Jt is a far prettier town than Neuchatel; and —I wonder if sh 9is a Bernois? I wonder if I shall ever see her face again?” Just then—was it possible/—in the dim light a gray gown passed him and slipped into a third-class carriage. And he had an impression that she wore a gray gown. “Nonsense!” laughing at himself as he lounged back in his luxurious wagon; “a creature liko that couldn’t possibly travel third-class." So he tried to forget her, and think only of the Jungfrau; then secondarily, of the means he mu&t take to interest M. Reynier in his search for Archibald Jardine— in wbom.it must be confessed, his own interest was fast dying out. Anything tedious, or dull, or unpleasant, was so ne w to him. He did not appreciate it at all The train being late, he had only i'ust time to dart out and fly to his lotel to dress for the evening. He had a fine face and a graceful figure, a bearing that was “every inch the gentleman”—and manners—well, he could not have said a harsh or discourteous word to a woman any woman, high or low, ugly or pretty, young or old—for his life: Thus he appeared as he entered the salon of M. le Professeur Reynier. It was very dimly lighted, with shaded lamps, so that at first Roderick distinguished nothing; then he became aware of a gray-haired gentleman, a matronly lady.'and a cloud of young people of different ages, down to quite small children; of a courteous and kindly reception, and of pas-ing into a salle-a-manger, where was laid out a simple but abundant meal, corresponding to the “hungry tea” of Scolch habit. Everything, indeed, was extremely simple— bu. so pretty! from the shiny parquet floor to the taste

fully deraolated table, with its dainty china, flowers, and fruit. One missed a little the bright English fire, and the stove gave a certain closeness to tfce room—a sense of warm darkness, which, however, was not unpleasant; there was a sort of mystery about it, and youth likes mystery. Roderick glanced round him at the party, evidently quite a family party. It was an odd thing, a very odd thing; but dropping down as if from the clouds upon this little town which j a week ago was to him a mere dot on the map, he felt himself quite at home there —die a Cambridge man and a man of fortune—more at home than he had done in Rioherden society all his days. And when, re-entering the salon, he found a few other guests, scarcely visible in the dim light, and was introduced expressly to a “Mees Somebody from Edimbourg, “ who responded, with painful blushes, in the broadest of • bcotch accents, he heartily wished his own oauntry-people were—well, that they were all tafe at home! “And here, monsieur,“ continue! his host, loading him up to another lady, j mi idle-aged—“here Is one of our best friends, though but newly settled near j us, who 1 doubt not will have the 1 pleasure of conversing with you in your own tongue—Monsieur Ardon—- | Madame ” Roderiok was so amused by the transformation of his own name that he scarcely caught the lady’s, but he was too shy still either to correct the one or inquire about the other. “Monsieur Reynier is very polite,” said his neighbor, still speaking in French. “But he forgets that it is my daughter who knows English so weli; her papa took the greatest pains to teach her. For me—l was always too busy, and too stupid. Besides,’’ with a slight sigh, which directed Roderick’s attention from the gentle face to the widow’s mourning—though not exactly “weeds”—“my husband loved French best. It was the language of his adopted country.” “He was not Swiss-born, tnen?” asked Roderick, sitting down by her. She was neither beautiful, nor even pretty, never could have been; but there was a charm in her manner—a mixture of French grace and Swiss earnestness which attracted him I much. “No, monsieur, he was English, or ! rather Scotch, naturalized here. My | daughter!”—but no translation can exi press the tender intonation of that word ma fille—“will you come and tell 1 this gentleman tho name of the place —I cannot pronounce it—whore your papa was horny” Roderick's gaze followed madame’s to a ta 1. slender girl, dressed, not like her mother, in b aek, but in pure white; no floppy, flouncy musltn, b.it a thick, Boft woolen material, up to the throat and down to the wrists. She had a small, well-set curly head—actual curls like a chids—and turning quietly rounl she met him with tnose calm, blue eye-', the very same eyes which had filled with tears at the sunset beauty of the Jungfiau. Once more the young man started, absolutely started. He seemed taken, nay, clutched, by the very hand of destiny itself. For on entering the room he had looked into every fresh lace of these ploasant Swis‘s girls, vaguely hoping to find again those wonderful blue eyes. They faced him in entire unconsciousness and with a direct, child-like simplicity, corresponding with the childish curls. “Mamma,” she said, bowing to the stranger a grave, dignified, self-pcs-sessed bow, more like a young English woman than those timid foreign maidens. “Pardon. lam just going to sing with Sophie Reynier; but I will come back presently, as Mr. Reynier desired me, and speak English with this gentleman, if he wishes it. ” |TO BE CONTINUED. I